Disclaimer

Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book Review routinely receives books from Publishers and Authors for review consideration. When in doubt assume the book comes from a Publisher or if you follow my New Procurement posts I usually describe the source of said book. I still buy a lot of books as well.

We've hit the half way point in the year so I thought between this and the fact people are looking for their annual Summer Read Recommendations I'd chime in. Without further adieu here are the books I most enjoyed this year so far. These are not in any particular order.

Of all of the above Among Thieves, Robopocalpyse, The Desert of Souls, and The Warded Man would make particularly good beach reads. They all move so effortlessly and definitely fall in the page-turning category. Also, note all four of these books are debuts of one sort or another, which I didn't realize until finishing this list. There are still plenty of other good chances to make it on my year-end list. We've got Mark Charan Newton's next Legends of the Red Sun, Leviathan Wakes still slumbers on my shelf as does The Map of Time and The Magician King. And the chance that Scott Lynch's next book will be released is still a possibility albeit a very thin one this late in the year.

The Alchemist does use the similar themes having to do with the environment, but in this case the major environmental disaster is caused by the use of magic. It was really well done and does leave things on a more hopeful note that The Windup Girl. I'm actually a more a fan of Bacigalupi's short work as his sometimes sad style can be a lot to take over a long period. The Alchemist was the perfect length being a novella. Also, word on the street is he wants to write a novel in this world.